How Old-School Catalogs Help Drive Up Online Sales

I would like to share with you a research by SeeWhy I came across “How Old-School Catalogs Help Drive Up Online Sales”, which I was allowed to publish in our blog. The reason why I agree with the article below is based on my own experience from 2 online/offline based retailers, T.M.Lewin – selling shirts, ties etc., and Next.co.uk.

I receive catalogs from these 2 retailers into my post box, and since I started getting them I practically started buying more from them as well. When I shop for shirts I always go to T.M.Lewin online store first, or if I need some casual stuff, then I visit Next website and most of the time I purchase something.

What’s interesting about my shopping habit is the fact, that I prefer to buy online, as to me it seems like they have bigger selection online. Also I would like to support the author comment “Visitors that arrive at their websites are not cautious and in need of convincing because they have probably already been warmed up by an old-fashioned direct mail campaign and a catalog that arrived in their mailbox” from my another experience.

I personally don’t like certain aspects on Next website. For example, if a product comes in different colours, then usually pictures displayed are only in one colour, and usually you are not able to see the product in other colours. What’s interesting about it, is that even though I found it extremely annoying, I still keep coming back to the site to purchase items, however, if Next sorted this issue out, then I would very likely bought more from them, as sometimes the only reason I don’t buy is that a product picture in different colour is not available.

Read the post below:

I recently received an email from Internet Retailer promoting a piece of research which suggests that online shoppers that received a catalog in the mail spent on average 163 percent more than those that didn’t.

One hundred sixty-three percent? That’s a big difference.

This prompted me to go back to the research SeeWhy did into the Lessons Learned from the Top 10 Converting Websites, which revealed that 9 out of 10 of the top converting websites in the U.S. also have catalogs. These companies have visitor–to-sale conversion rates averaging 23 percent, compared with an industry average of 2-3 percent. However, this cannot be attributed solely to having a catalog.

Most online marketers strive to maximize their website conversion rates. When setting out on this path, the usual starting point for conversion rate optimization is data. Now, I’m a data-driven guy who lives in the analytics world, but it’s important to remember that conversion rate optimization is about getting more sales online.

It’s not about data, web analytics reports, conversion funnels, website tuning or anything else. These are all tools at your disposal to help you optimize your conversion rate, and it is important not to become overly fixated on the tools, but to focus on the goal: drive more online revenues. It’s not about whether the checkout button should be in green or on the right hand side.

So take a step back for a moment, and look afresh at your website. Think about your buyers—who they are, what they are like, and in a moment of escapism, become one. Visualize how they arrive at your site, where they come from, who influences them, and what makes them visit you online.

Sooner or later, we all realize that the quality of traffic to a website is absolutely critical when it comes to conversion rate optimization. One hundred thousand visitors per day that never buy may make your high-level visitor stats look good, but they throw off the rest of your metrics and do nothing for sales. An extra 1,000 visitors per day that convert will make all the difference. This doesn’t mean that high traffic volumes are bad, but the higher the quality of traffic arriving at your site, the greater your chances of converting visitors to sales.

The mainstay in driving quality traffic to websites for many years has been email, and increasingly for many ecommerce sites, traffic referred from their other website on Facebook. But catalogs? How very 1980’s.

Yet all the evidence suggests that customers love to browse offline and purchase online. In fact, research conducted by the USPS and Comscore (see below) found that catalogs doubled sales and increased website traffic for both existing and new customers.

Catalogs-more-than-doubled-online-sales Catalogs-drive-web-visits

This is one of the primary reasons why the big direct marketing companies consistently have high converting websites. Visitors that arrive at their websites are not cautious and in need of convincing because they have probably already been warmed up by an old-fashioned direct mail campaign and a catalog that arrived in their mailbox. They also have a very strong repeat purchase culture. While many marketers are fixated about new visitors, many of the top converting websites are focused on getting the second, third and fourth sale.

The purpose of this blog was to get you to step back from your website conversion problem for a moment and look holistically at your business, your customers and how to reach them. Hopefully it’s helped.

Many ecommerce companies could benefit not only from catalogs, but by thinking more holistically about their market and integrating communications across the full spectrum of channels in order to drive better quality traffic. And therein, their conversion rate will climb.

Without changing their checkout button to green or moving it two inches to the right.

I have 9 Years of Tremendous Experience as web analyst and Senior Conversion Specialist. I have worked on optimisation project for the second-largest store retailer in the USA (the company is also a component of the S&P 500 Index), as well as for a well-known USA fashion retailer with over 380 stores nationwide.
Over the course of my career I have achieved many INSANE improvements on our client’s websites, sometimes by applying best practices, another time from findings I made during conversion audits and sometimes thinking out of the box. For one of them I have even received an award in 2012 from WhichTestOne, where after testing different emails and parts of email message we increased revenue by 303.08%.
What might also interest you is the fact that my average conversion improvement is 19% and my success rate is 70%. Basically, I’m VERY GOOD at what I do thanks to my Can Do Attitude to find solutions to given problems & Experience in this field.

Get Latest Conversion News and A/B Case Studies

Get 6 FREE Kickass A/B Case Studies

Before You Go

Would You Like to Boost Your Website Sales by 52% Almost Overnight?

Get this FREE strategy and learn how one client increased his revenue BY OVER 52% ALMOST OVERNIGHT by making just one simple change on his website. That simple change brought to him extra $168,000 IN SALES ANNUALLY.